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Australasian Safari: Stage 06 brought the participants back west to Kalbarri.

Competitors arrived in Kalbarri tired and battle weary but happy with Friday’s penultimate Leg of the "Australasian Safari".

429 km through cattle country, along the Murchison River and finishing at Murchison House by the stunning Kalbarri National Park again - partly on same tracks as on SS02 some days before. The tracks caused more difficulty for the cars with tight treelines and deep sand to tackle.

Still in the overall lead, the Holden Colorado crew Hederics/Weel is focused on the finish line. "We had a really good run today, the last 40 km was beautiful, the car’s going fine and we’re consolidating now, not pushing hard and preserving our lead."

They were still followed by the production class Subaru Forester of Herridge / Hill and the Nissan Patrol of Owen / Cairns.

Herridge in the Subaru was philosophic about their game plan. "I’m between the devil and the deep blue sea - we’re nursing our position at the moment, we don’t want to be too foolhardy, but we want to go fast but we can’t. For tomorrow we’re crossing our fingers, crossing our T’s and dotting our I’s. We’re wrapped to be doing what we’re doing," he said.

Geoff Olholm in the Mitsubishi Pajero had again a stage-win and said, the last 40 km were great: "It was high speed and sandy flowing stages that required high concentration because of ruts and drifts, we were sliding around hitting 200km, it was a lot of fun. We left first and we were in first - it was brilliant."

Nuncio Coffaro from Venezuela in the Overdrive Toyota Hilux said they had a hard time in the rocky areas. "It was hard for the car and the stages were very close to the trees - just millimeters. We punctured two tyres, lost our mirrors and our front grill. But otherwise the car is running great."

Wayne Park and Myles Newbon in their Australian Toyota Hilux Pickup nudged into third place overall in the autos after today’s Leg. Park said they were now really pushing. "The first few days we were just cruising around waiting for people to drop out but now we’re trying harder and hoping for third."

Saturday is the final Leg and the eighth day of the Australasian Safari. Competitors have two short stages to bring it home to Geraldton. After crossing a paddock they will drop into the beach, blasting south to the finish line.